I was making my way from Lake Tekapo to Queenstown today, or that was the plan anyway. While driving round the foothills of Mount Cook a small amount of snow started to fall and within twenty minutes it was a full on blizzard! I carried on down my route and after another 50 or so kilometers, I attatched snow chains to the tires as the snow was becoming very thick on the ground and the car was beginning to slide around at enormous speeds of upto 25 kilometres an hour!

As I passed 4x4's in ditches and police cars attempting to pull them out. I began to wonder whether driving cross country was such a good idea in my little 1 litre Toyota. I stopped a short while latter to speak to a couple of 4x4 drivers who were attatching chains to their wheels and was told the road ahead had been closed, and unless it was a life or death situation I would be "crazy" to attempt to get to Queenstown in the weather

The closest town was about 20K's back the way I had come so I very slowly drove back, with the snow getting heavier as each minute passed. A couple of hours later, I arrived in the "town" of Omarama, which is basically a glorified truckstop with a couple of motels and a cafe! Every motel in town, (both of them), is filled with stranded people and there are no beds available. So I have managed to convince the owner of the second motel I tried, to let me sleep on a matress in the hotel lounge by the fireplace! At this point (7pm) every road has been closed in every direction leaving Omarama!

I sat and watched the weather forecast earlier along with about twenty other people all hoping for good news, and the weather predictions for tomorrow are.....more snow!!!

Will I ever get to Queenstown? Will I make my flight to Aukland in 8 days? Will I ever get out of this little town? Who knows?!